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I have a hybrid app developed with DevExpress and PhoneGap.

I try to open a local jpeg image via

window.open('file:///var/mobile/Containers/Data/.../image.jpg', '_system');

but it does not work (anymore) on iPhone and iPad (latest iOS 9 version), failing with the error error: "This app is not allowed to query for scheme file".

(The app downloaded the image beforehand via the Phonegap method FileTransfer.download to the folder that it got via window.requestFileSystem(LocalFileSystem.PERSISTENT, 0, ...) method.)

It works fine on Android, and it worked fine on iPhone as well a few weeks ago. I think it might be related to the PhoneGap update due to an update of DevExtreme.

Before, I used PhoneGap 3.7.0, now I use cli-5.2.0.

I already found this question (https://www.devexpress.com/Support/Center/Question/Details/Q486439), which is similar, but it's already 2 years old and does not seem to solve my questions.

Using GapDebug, I see this in the log:

<Warning>: THREAD WARNING: ['InAppBrowser'] took '38.211914' ms. Plugin should use a background thread.
<Warning>: THREAD WARNING: ['File'] took '26.509033' ms. Plugin should use a background thread.
<Warning>: -canOpenURL: failed for URL: "file:///var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/9425CCB6-77F7-4337-B37C-7DB577C2F6B4/Documents/myDocuments/a96e7238-a502-49e6-bcd3-186937afc3cb/camera_1458208164206.jpg" - error: "This app is not allowed to query for scheme file"

It's some kind of permission problem, but what to add to the config.xml?

This is my config.xml:

<widget xmlns="http://www.w3.org/ns/widgets" xmlns:gap="http://phonegap.com/ns/1.0" id="com.devexpress.apptemplate" version="1.0" versionCode="1">
  <name>ApplicationTemplate</name>
  <preference name="phonegap-version" value="cli-5.2.0" />
  <preference name="permissions" value="none" />
  <preference name="prerendered-icon" value="true" />
  <preference name="android-windowSoftInputMode" value="adjustResize" />
  <preference name="SplashScreen" value="splash" />
  <preference name="SplashScreenDelay" value="60000" />
  <preference name="AutoHideSplashScreen" value="false" />
  <preference name="DisallowOverscroll" value="true" />
  <preference name="StatusBarOverlaysWebView" value="false" />
  <preference name="StatusBarBackgroundColor" value="#000000" />
  <preference name="KeyboardDisplayRequiresUserAction" value="false" />
  <feature name="http://api.phonegap.com/1.0/network" />
  <gap:plugin name="com.devexpress.plugins.devextremeaddon" version="1.0.1" />
  <gap:plugin name="cordova-plugin-ios-longpress-fix" version="1.1.0" source="npm" />
  <gap:plugin name="org.apache.cordova.camera" version="0.3.6" />
  <gap:plugin name="org.apache.cordova.file" version="1.3.3" />
  <gap:plugin name="org.apache.cordova.file-transfer" version="0.5.0" />
  <gap:plugin name="org.apache.cordova.inappbrowser" version="0.6.0" />
  <gap:plugin name="org.apache.cordova.media-capture" version="0.3.6" />
  <gap:plugin name="org.apache.cordova.media" version="0.2.16" />
  <gap:plugin name="org.apache.cordova.network-information" version="0.2.15" />
  <gap:plugin name="cordova-plugin-statusbar" version="2.1.0" source="npm" onload="true" />
  <gap:plugin name="org.apache.cordova.splashscreen" version="1.0.0" onload="true" />
  <access origin="*" subdomains="true"/>
  <gap:plugin name="cordova-plugin-whitelist" source="npm"/>
  <allow-navigation href="*" />
  <allow-intent href="*" />
</widget>

I even added the two lines

  <allow-navigation href="*" />
  <allow-intent href="*" />

according to https://github.com/apache/cordova-plugin-whitelist and it does not help.

I saw that Ionic, another hybrid framework, also mentions in their docs http://docs.ionic.io/docs/cordova-whitelist that there might be permission problems with newer Phonegap versions, such as the CLI versions, and that the above <allow-navigation href="*" /> should be used - however it does not seem to help in my case.

=== Update ===

I created two tickets on Phonegap's & Cordova's github:

=== Update 2 ===

As suggest below, I am now using https://github.com/pwlin/cordova-plugin-file-opener2 instead, which works fine.

Community
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Mathias Conradt
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2 Answers2

2

On iOS 9 you have to config the urls you want to query (know if you can open them).

To do that you have to edit the info.plist and add the LSApplicationQueriesSchemeskey and an array of strings with the schemes you want to query

<key>LSApplicationQueriesSchemes</key>
<array>
 <string>file</string>
 <string>whatsapp</string>
 <string>...</string>
</array>

As you are using cordova, you can do that in a few different ways.

You can open Xcode project inside platforms/ios and edit the info.plist file, but the Xcode project is removed and recreated in some cases, and your changes will be lost.

Another option is to create a simple cordova plugin that just writes on the info.plist. To do that you have to use the config-file tag on the plugin.xml

<config-file target="*-Info.plist" parent="LSApplicationQueriesSchemes">
    <array>
        <string>file</string> 
    </array>
</config-file>

http://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/plugin_ref/spec.html#platform

Third option is to use a hook, a hook is a script file (node, bash) that is executed, and you can use it to write on the info.plist http://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/guide/appdev/hooks/index.html

jcesarmobile
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  • I am working with DevExtreme (http://js.devexpress.com/) using Visual Studio (no XCode), which in turn uses PhoneGap in the end. There, I am just using some cordova plugins (whitelist for example). I don't have any info.plist file anywhere in my project. (Sorry, it's my first hybrid app, using Phonegap/Cordova). But maybe I forward your advice to the DevExtreme support. Thanks for the hint. – Mathias Conradt Apr 08 '16 at 08:59
  • Just a side note: the window.open worked fine on iOS 9 before in my project, it just does not work anymore since the recent PhoneGap version update. – Mathias Conradt Apr 08 '16 at 09:00
  • I gave you 3 options, at least the plugin option should work for your case. The error you get appears when `canOpenURL` is used, maybe the previous version of cordova didn't use it and used `openURL` directly, using `openURL` will work a few times (I think 50) before start failing without error message. Or maybe devexpress was using Xcode 6, where you didn't need to do what I told you. To use plugins see https://www.devexpress.com/Support/Center/Question/Details/KA18816 – jcesarmobile Apr 08 '16 at 09:55
  • Ok. Thank you. Just fyi - the linked approach how to use plugins is 3 years old, it does not apply anymore. The current how-to is http://js.devexpress.com/Documentation/Guide/VS_Integration/Packaging_Tools/#Set_Required_Plugins. I got it working now by using this plugin https://github.com/pwlin/cordova-plugin-file-opener2. – Mathias Conradt Apr 08 '16 at 10:23
1

I was facing the same problem... I started using cordova-plugin-file-opener2 (github.com/pwlin/cordova-plugin-file-opener2) to avoid the problem.

To solve the problem with white spaces I removed them from the targetPath:

targetPath = targetPath.replace(/ /g,'')

So my download/open code is like that:

$cordovaFileTransfer.download(url, targetPath, options, trustHosts)
  .then(function(result) {
    $cordovaFileOpener2.open(targetPath, mimeType)
  })
gmartini20
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  • I wanted to keep the original name. I solved it by using encodeURI when downloading the file. https://github.com/pwlin/cordova-plugin-file-opener2/issues/53 – Mathias Conradt Apr 08 '16 at 14:50